A mother’s story: Shonda Schilling speaks at B-R about raising a son with Asperger’s

In 2007, Shonda Schilling looked to all the world like a woman who had it all — a husband who’d just helped the Red Sox sweep the World Series, a big beautiful family, wealth and fame.But inside, this poised and elegant woman was struggling.Her 7-year-old son Grant had recently been diagno...

By Rebecca Hyman

The Taunton Daily Gazette, Taunton, MA

By Rebecca Hyman

Posted Nov. 23, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Nov 23, 2012 at 11:16 PM

By Rebecca Hyman

Posted Nov. 23, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Nov 23, 2012 at 11:16 PM

Raynham

» Social News

In 2007, Shonda Schilling looked to all the world like a woman who had it all — a husband who’d just helped the Red Sox sweep the World Series, a big beautiful family, wealth and fame.

But inside, this poised and elegant woman was struggling.

Her 7-year-old son Grant had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and she felt terrible sadness and guilt — sadness because she wondered if he would ever have the life she’d envisioned for him and guilt because she’d been parenting him “incorrectly” for years, assuming he was being intentionally disrespectful, embarassed by his socially inappropriate behavior, mortified by the disapproval of strangers, yelling at him when he didn’t even understand why she was yelling.

But over the past five years, she’s learned a lot — much of it from this remarkable young man, who loves marine biology, comes bounding into rooms and tells you exactly what he thinks whether you’re ready to hear it or not.

“There’s nothing he does that’s intentional and when he loves he loves so big it makes your heart want to explode,” she told a crowd of about 75 in the B-R auditorium on Monday, Nov. 19 at a free lecture sponsored by the Bridgewater-Raynham and Middleboro special education parents advisory councils.

Now, Schilling truly does have it all, not because her life is picture perfect but because she’s come to love and accept her children, her husband — retired pitching great Curt Schilling — and herself for exactly who they are.

“I want to tell you how I’d come to be completely fearful of what the future would be and how I’m embracing it now,” she said.

Schilling said she went from the mom who judged other moms when their children melted down in the grocery store to the mom who wants them to know they are not alone.

She went from the mom who wouldn’t dream of letting a child wear pajamas in public to one who says ‘let them wear a Halloween costume’ if that’s what gets them out the door and makes them happy.

In addition to Grant’s diagnosis of Asperger’s, all four of the Schilling children, as well as Curt, have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Shonda Schilling had been one of those parents who said ADHD is “an excuse.” Now she knows it’s real, that some kids are “different” and that different can be a blessing as well as a challenge.

She was also one of those people who couldn’t imagine ever taking an anti-depressant. But by the end of the summer of 2007, she knew she or Grant or both of them would be on medication — and it turned out to be both.

Page 2 of 3 - “It gave me a chance to take that deep breath,” she said — and if the medication ever went off the market, “Watch out,” she joked.

Schilling — who travels to Bridgewater often with her daughter Gabby who plays with the Taunton Drifters softball team at the Dome — also talked about another thing that would have once seemed unthinkable.

Around the same time as Grant’s diagnosis, she and Curt entered into marriage counseling. With all the stress, they were fighting and she felt isolated. He was away so much during baseball season, she felt like a single mom. And you had to experience Grant’s behavior to understand it, but Curt wasn’t home enough for that to happen, she said.

After Curt retired, he told her he felt the same guilt she had over the way he had treated Grant before he knew about Asperger’s — a disorder on the autism spectrum — but Shonda told Curt there’s no way he could have known.

They learned to listen to each other and “learned to like each other again,” she said.

Shonda Schilling is candid and open, self-effacing and dignified. She has drawn great strength from other parents of special needs children and wants to be a source of strength and support for parents just embarking on this “journey,” she said.

Life with Grant is not without it’s embarrassments, but she has learned to take the good with the bad and see the humor in the pitfalls and whoppers.

A couple of years ago the Schillings were retuning from a cruise when the customs agent asked if they had any plants or flowers with them.

“Grant looked at him and said, ‘Maybe I do and maybe I don’t’,” she recalled with a chuckle.

She also recalled the looming battles that turned into epiphanies.

One day Grant came out of his room with his shirt on backwards. She asked him to fix it, but he said he thought the decal looked better in front.

“I thought how nice to be that comfortable with yourself. He shows me every day how much of a gift it is to be able to live like that,” she said.

A few years back, she was “one of those parents who was afraid of different,” but Grant knew better. In first grade, he befriended a boy with Down syndrome because “Grant never saw him as being different.”

“Grant pushed me to be a better parent and better friend because he showed me there are no differences,” Shonda Schilling said.

And she’s no longer fearful about Grant’s future. It’s full of promise, she said.

“He’s not going to grow up and take a job that brings him the most money or the biggest title but the one that brings him the most joy,” she said.

Page 3 of 3 - When Grant was first diagnosed, a doctor told her, “He’ll be very intelligent but may have social problems. Take him home and raise him with your other children and I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

But she did the opposite. She told everyone, she said.

“I felt if you don’t understand what Asperger’s is you can’t understand what my son is and I want people to understand him,” she said.

That’s why she wrote “The Best Kind of Different: Our Family’s Journey with Asperger’s Syndrome” a couple of years ago.

“The true meaning of the book was to give my son the dignity he deserves,” she said.

B-R SEPAC Vice President Kate Dyer said she was touched by Schilling’s story.

“She was so down to earth, so honest and so real,” Dyer said.

B-R SEPAC President Stephen Benjamin said the organization aims to raise awareness about disabilities and let parents know they are not alone.

“We’re trying to educate not only parents who have children with special needs but also parents of kids who don’t have special needs, educators and the community on matters of special education and acceptance,” Benjamin said.